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Maddox gave him a pitying look. That was far worse than an outright rejection of the idea would have been. He hated the way Maddox looked at him. There was sadness in his eyes, a kind of deep regret. Will wondered if Mad regretted everything that had happened between them. Life must have been a great deal more simple before he arrived.
“I have been looking for solutions,” Maddox said. “We cannot go on like this forever. You need to come to an acceptance of your wolfness. You’re fighting your nature, and it’s making you sick.”
“My father forced me to eat his flesh.”
“Yes. It was wrong. It was vile. It forced you to confront an internal intensity you were not prepared for. And it hardly gave you a positive experience with your kind.”
They were sitting in the lounge, an area near the kitchen with deep leather couches. The day had dragged for Will, mostly because he’d spent most of it dreading the inevitable madness of the night. It was getting to be the time when he put himself away. He never really felt like it, though he always did it. He wasn’t even really arguing with Maddox. He was arguing with himself.
“There’s no need to head for the cage yet. I have a surprise for you.”
“Oh?” Will was intrigued.
“I don’t want you to take this as any kind of rejection…”
“You're sending me away.” Will folded his arms over his chest. “Do they have camps for wayward werewolves?”
“No. I’m not sending you anywhere.”
“Then where’s the rejection?”
“You're a werewolf, William.”
“Yeah. I noticed. Ruined my fucking appetite.”
“I am a vampire. An ancient vampire, but still a vampire. I can’t give you what you need entirely. You need contact with your own kind. Someone who can guide you.”
“So far I’m not impressed with other wolves.”
“Ivan is not the last of his kind. I have had the unit searching for others. Others who are able to maintain a healthier existence.”
“And?”
“Captain Candy found one. Some, actually, but one for now.”
“Okay…” Will said.
“I’d like you to meet him.”
“When?”
“Now. He’s waiting for us in the parlor.”
“I didn’t know we had a parlor; which one of the concrete rooms is that?”
It turned out to be the concrete room where the SUCU people met. Parlor was a stretch. It had some chairs and a rug, but so did the warden’s office at Rikers. Anyway. Will wasn’t in the mood to meet new people — especially not new wolves. He was still far from coming to terms with the disappointment of his own father being a mad cannibal. Meeting another one felt like more of a very bad thing.
"You can come of your own accord, or I can lead you down on a leash, pup. Which one will it be?”
Maddox had not left him with much in the way of options. Will had chosen to come of his own accord. But the second he walked in, his gut was telling him to walk the fuck back out again.
The guy Maddox wanted him to meet was standing dead center of the room, controlling the space with a stiff, military bearing. The moment he and Maddox walked in, his eyes locked on Will. Will found it very difficult to return the stare. It felt like a challenge, and a challenge felt like a bad idea.
The stranger had a deep, dark gaze, and the kind of eyes that seemed to be perpetually staring through whatever they were looking at. He was wearing dark camo trousers and a black vest. His shoulders were broad, his arms sculpted by endless lifting. His bare arms were covered in a plethora of tattoos of various origins, wild creatures performing even wilder acts. He looked like a mercenary rock star who’d sold his soul to the war machine. At well over six feet, he cut a very imposing figure, the sort of person criminals crossed the street to avoid, the sort of man presidents bowed to without ever knowing why. Oh, and his hair. His fucking hair was cut in a sort of GI Joe flat top. Will couldn’t work out if he looked more like an 80’s action hero or something out of a manga. The answer was probably both.
“Yeah. I’m not interested. Thanks. But no thanks. Have a safe trip back to the army surplus store.”
William was being ruder than usual. Maddox could smell his fear. He imagined Henry could too. Will had been doing a lot of growing of late, but in the presence of the pack master he suddenly seemed small again, young and uncertain, depending on bravado.
“This is Henry Riker, and he is the last pack master in North America,” Maddox said. “He and his lineage survived the wolf purges during the last world war. You will call him master, and you will speak to him with respect.”
